Class action alleges heavy metals in Costco's Orgain protein

The class action over Costco-sold Orgain protein powder begins with a concrete filing, not a generalized warning about supplements. On July 7, 2026, seven plaintiffs filed suit in the Western District of Washington against Costco Wholesale Corp. and Orgain, LLC over two Orgain protein powders sold by Costco: Vanilla Bean and Creamy Chocolate Fudge. The case, brought by Hagens Berman, invokes the Washington Consumer Protection Act, California’s UCL, FAL, and CLRA, and consumer-protection statutes in Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, and Texas. The allegation is that consumers paid a premium for wellness-positioned protein products without being told the products allegedly contained heavy metals at levels material to a purchase decision.[1]

The complaint PDF itself was not directly parsed. The filing details discussed here come from available secondary reporting and from the plaintiffs’ firm release, which means the account may not capture every pleaded theory, defense, exhibit, or qualifier.

The load-bearing testing allegation is narrow and specific: plaintiffs say ISO 17025 testing by Microbac Laboratories found 3.37 micrograms of lead per serving in Orgain Vanilla Bean, described as 674% above California Proposition 65’s 0.5 microgram-per-day maximum allowable dose level for lead.[1] That comparison matters for the pleadings, but it should not be inflated into a claim of acute poisoning. Prop 65’s MADL is a daily exposure threshold with safety margins; it is not a line at which a serving becomes an immediate toxicological event.

Why the testing allegation is legally useful

For consumer-fraud purposes, the stronger version of the case is not simply that lead, cadmium, or arsenic were allegedly present. Trace environmental contaminants can appear in many food products, and a complaint built only on alarm language is easier to narrow at the pleading stage. The more useful plaintiff-side package is the combination of named Costco-sold products, a named laboratory, an ISO 17025 testing frame, a specific Prop 65 comparison, and a premium-price theory.

The plaintiffs also point to parts-per-billion results for Vanilla Bean: lead at 67 ppb, cadmium at 70.3 ppb, and arsenic at 19.8 ppb.[1] Those figures do not by themselves establish liability. They do, however, give the complaint a factual center that can be tied to alleged omissions, reliance, and economic injury. A defendant can contest methodology, lot representativeness, legal materiality, damages, or preemption arguments, but the first dismissal motion is harder when the complaint has product-specific lab values rather than only category-wide concern.

The price allegation plays the same role. Plaintiffs allege that Orgain products were sold at a premium, including a comparison of $0.79 per ounce against $0.42 per ounce for competitors described as having non-detectable heavy metals.[1] That is the economic-injury bridge. The alleged harm is not framed primarily as a diagnosed medical injury; it is that consumers allegedly paid more for a product whose undisclosed testing profile would have mattered to them.

The evidence record is doing different jobs

The public materials around the case should not be collapsed into one undifferentiated “heavy metals” file. The Microbac results, Clean Label Project study, Consumer Reports testing, Texas Attorney General investigation, and California legislation each support a different inference.

That distinction is important because notice arguments often turn on what a retailer or manufacturer reasonably knew, or should have treated as a risk requiring review. Category-wide testing does not prove the named product’s condition. But once a category is under public testing scrutiny, a seller of a premium plant-based protein powder has a weaker path to saying the issue was unforeseeable.

Clean Label Project gave plaintiffs the market-wide predicate, not the Orgain proof

Clean Label Project’s January 2025 protein powder study is useful to plaintiffs because of its scale. The study covered 160 products, 70 brands, and 35,862 data points. It reported that 47% of tested products exceeded California Prop 65 thresholds, that 79% of organic products exceeded Prop 65 for lead, that organic powders had three times more lead than non-organic powders, and that chocolate products had 110 times more cadmium than vanilla products.[2]

Those findings make the category look litigation-ready, particularly for plant-based and organic positioning. They do not identify Orgain in the public dataset. Treating the Clean Label Project study as if it supplied the Orgain-specific lab numbers would overstate the record. The cleaner use is notice and market context: by early 2025, heavy-metal testing in protein powders was no longer an obscure theory circulating only among plaintiffs’ lawyers.

For Costco, that context matters because the retailer is not merely a passive bystander in the consumer’s transaction. It chose to sell the products, place them in front of members, and benefit from the price paid. The class theory still has to survive retailer-specific defenses, including what Costco allegedly knew, what it controlled, and what statements or omissions can be attributed to it. But a large retailer selling wellness-positioned protein products in 2026 does so against a public record that had already put the category on notice.

Consumer Reports tightened the plant-based comparison and named Orgain

Consumer Reports added a different kind of pressure in October 2025. Its testing covered 23 products and multiple lots over three months. It reported that roughly 70% exceeded Consumer Reports’ level of concern of 0.5 micrograms of lead per day, and that plant-based products averaged nine times more lead than dairy-based products.[3]

Unlike the public Clean Label Project dataset, Consumer Reports also discussed Orgain specifically. It rated Orgain at 143% of Consumer Reports’ level of concern and listed a 4¾ servings-per-week limit.[3] That is not the same as a regulator ordering the product off shelves, and it is not a substitute for the plaintiffs’ Microbac testing. It is, however, the kind of public consumer-testing signal that a plaintiff can use to argue that the manufacturer and retailer had reason to investigate and disclose.

The plant-based comparison also matters because Orgain’s value proposition is not generic calories. Protein powders are often sold into a health, fitness, and wellness frame. If plaintiffs can show that consumers paid more because they believed they were buying a cleaner or healthier product, an alleged undisclosed contaminant profile becomes more than a technical label dispute. It becomes the reason the price-premium theory has traction.

The 2026 enforcement environment makes “no notice” harder to keep clean

By the time the Costco and Orgain suit was filed, the issue had moved beyond nonprofit and media testing. On June 8, 2026, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an industry-wide investigation into protein powder manufacturers under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, citing the same public studies as part of the concern.[4] That does not establish deception by Costco, Orgain, or any other company. It does show that state enforcement authorities were treating heavy metals in protein powder as a consumer-protection issue, not merely as a toxicology debate.

California was moving on a parallel legislative track. SB 1033, introduced February 11, 2026, would require heavy-metal testing and public disclosure for protein products sold in California.[5] Proposed legislation is not present law, and it cannot itself create liability for prior sales. Its litigation significance is narrower: it reflects a developing regulatory judgment that consumers may need access to testing information before buying these products.

Taken together, the class action, Texas investigation, and California bill form the risk pattern. Private plaintiffs are seeking money and injunctive relief through consumer-protection statutes. A state attorney general is investigating industry practices. Legislators are considering mandatory testing and disclosure. For a retailer or manufacturer, those fronts interact. A disclosure bill can sharpen expectations. An attorney general investigation can increase document-preservation and messaging risk. A class action can use the same public record to argue that failure to disclose was not accidental.

What Costco and Orgain can still contest

The filing is still an allegation. Costco and Orgain can contest whether the tested samples are representative, whether the alleged omissions were material to reasonable consumers, whether the named plaintiffs actually relied on the challenged representations or omissions, whether the claimed price comparison is a valid damages measure, and whether state-law claims can proceed on behalf of the proposed classes. They can also argue that compliance with applicable food-safety standards defeats or narrows the claims.

Orgain’s position must remain visible: the company says its products comply with applicable food-safety standards. The available materials also identify no FDA recall. Those points matter because this is not a public-health adjudication, and the cited record does not justify saying regulators have found the products unsafe.

The harder defense is not necessarily “the metals were absent.” The pleaded testing results, if accepted at the motion-to-dismiss stage, may be enough to get past that simple denial for pleading purposes. The more likely early fight is over legal materiality and economic injury: what exactly did Costco and Orgain tell consumers, what did they omit, would the omission have mattered, and how should any alleged overpayment be measured?

The risk signal

The suit matters because it converts a year of third-party testing, consumer-reporting scrutiny, state attorney general attention, and proposed disclosure legislation into private consumer litigation against a major retailer and a major supplement brand. That does not make liability proven. It does make the “we didn’t know” defense more contested than it would be in a one-off contamination complaint with no pre-suit public record.

For retailers selling plant-based protein products, the immediate risk is procedural rather than medical: public testing data can become notice evidence; Prop 65 comparisons can become materiality allegations; and premium wellness pricing can become the damages frame. The Costco-Orgain case is an alleged and reported risk signal, but it is a more developed signal than the usual “hidden toxins” complaint.

References

1. Consumer Lawsuit Against Costco Alleges Toxic Heavy Metals in Orgain Protein Supplements, Hagens Berman
2. Protein Powder Study, Clean Label Project, January 2025
3. Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead, Consumer Reports, October 2025
4. Attorney General Ken Paxton Launches Industry-Wide Investigation into Protein Powder Manufacturers, Office of the Texas Attorney General, June 8, 2026
5. Senator Padilla Introduces Legislation to Protect Consumers from Heavy Metals in Protein Products, Senator Steve Padilla, February 11, 2026